Rohlfs & Roycroft

Charles Rohlfs and Elbert Hubbard (Roycroft) were both acclaimed, regional manufacturers of Arts and Crafts furniture. Their passion for furniture design grew out of necessity– Rohlfs to furnish his new home on Park Street in Buffalo and Elbert Hubbard to furnish the Roycroft Campus. At the urging of guests and associates, each started small, successful furniture brands which prospered until the late-1920’s.

Charles Rohlfs opened his first commercial workshop in Buffalo in 1898, a decade after he began crafting personal furniture. He was able to achieve success partly due to the financial stability provided by his wife, Anna Katharine Green, an accomplished novelist, known for her detective fiction, which brought in considerable income. This allowed Rohlfs the freedom to pursue his passion for designing furniture, without the pressure of financial insecurity. Her success and support gave him the space to create and innovate, leading to his recognition as an influential figure in American furniture design. Although most of Rohlfs designs related to the typical Arts and Crafts (Mission) form, he preferred the term “artistic furniture” to differentiate it from the others. Contrary to the standard Arts and Crafts ideology, he frequently incorporated intricately carved Art Nouveau or Gothic ornamentation. With emphasis placed on his creative process, assembly was often expedited through liberal use of hardware. Quarter-sawn white oak was his preferred lumber. He never employed more than two or three craftsmen at a time, embraced the true Ruskinian ideal like few others. Commissions from wealthy clientele were the mainstay of Rohlfs’ workshop. He would never fulfill demand, nor was it his desire to do so.

The Roycroft began as a printing operation in 1897 as an outlet for the preachments of Elbert Hubbard. His success and popularity necessitated the expansion of the Roycroft Campus, including the Roycroft Inn, which opened in 1905. Hubbard, not one to outsource for anything he could create, directed his construction crew to produce furniture for all campus buildings. This precipitated the desire from guests, who were captivated by the design and quality of the furniture, to have their own. By 1904, a large, three-story Furniture Shop had replaced small quarters in the Print Shop. Hubbard resented the term “Mission” to describe his linear Arts and Crafts furniture. Hubbard proclaimed his furniture, which was assembled by a small team of employees, to be in the “Roycroft style.” Unlike Rohlfs, Roycroft furniture exhibited simple lines– with an emphasis on quality. It was crafted in ash, oak, mahogany, and maple (specifically for the Inn) and incorporated wood joinery. The Roycroft Furniture Shop “fell short” on a 1913 commission for the Grove Park Inn in Ashville, North Carolina. The Roycroft forwarded designs to the White Furniture Company to fulfill this order before the Inn’s grand opening. To meet production demands, Hubbard welcomed progressive assembly– yet never wavered from Arts and Crafts furniture construction values.

A century later, both Rohlfs and Roycroft (Hubbard) are synonymous with the words Arts and Crafts Movement in the United States. Each had his own recipe for Movement assimilation. While they never garnered the same period success as larger manufacturers like the Stickley Brothers or Charles Limbert, today each is regarded as an icon of the Movement.